Bilifuduo (97.84)

Citi Not Safest Bank In The World? Crazy!

7

On August 16, Global Finance released the results of its 21st Annual Ranking of the World's 50 Safest Banks. The ranking, which "has been a recognized and trusted standard of creditworthiness for the entire financial world for more than 20 years," is evaluated along the lines of long-term credit ratings and total assets. Of course, we all know that credit ratings are hardly reliable at times and past performance is hardly indicative of future performance, but this ranking is pretty interesting.

For one, no U.S. bank is in the Top 10 ranking...or the Top 20 ranking. There's one in the Top 30 ranking, and that's Bank of New York Mellon, which comes in as the safest U.S. bank at...Number 29. U.S. Bancorp came in at No. 37 while Wells Fargo came in at No. 39. In fact, the U.S. only has 5 banks on the entire list; Canada has 7 while Germany, despite the turmoil of the European sovereign debt crisis, has 4 alone in the top 8. The top 10 are all from Europe, in part because of "explicit guarantees from AAA rated governments."

Any notable banks missing from the ranking? Only JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Citigroup.